A group, which identified itself as the Coalition Against the Abrogation of Indigenous Rights, CAAIR, has faulted the recent abolition of settler/indigene dichotomy by Governor Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai of Kaduna State.
The group stated that it is a plot to undermine indigenes of the state.
Speaking to the media in Abuja, the Convener of the coalition, Barrister Habila Bege Akut, said el-Rufai’s abrogation of the settler/indigene dichotomy amounts to a deliberate effort “to wipe out, eliminate, exterminate and eradicate thousands of years of history, languages, cultures and diverse distinct identities.”
He asked, “How can any well-intentioned government contemplate eliminating indigenous rights anywhere in Nigeria or Africa?
“This attack on Kaduna State indigenes is exclusive and targeted and this is what governor Nasiru El-Rufai is attempting to effect. He wants everyone else to leave their ancestral homelands where they retain ‘indigeneship’, and come to Kaduna where there will no longer be indigenes, if he has his way. History has shown that the worst genocides, killing entire members of indigenous communities, have been carried out by seeking to declare the ancestral territories of the people ‘vacant lands’, ‘No man’s land’, Terra Nullius in Latin, or territories empty of aboriginal, indigenous inhabitants.